Retadins in arenas (I can't believe I'm making this thread)

B

Ben Reed

Veteran X
Greetings friends,

I have a cute little Retadin alt that I want to farm a few more Arena points on for S3 welfare epics. My gear is mostly blues except for my S3 gauntlets and my almighty Despair (lol, I shouldn't have passed on all those Gorehowls...), and with my current gear I have roughly 155 resilience to work with. Needless to say, I don't plan on farming 2k+ personal on this character.

I would like to know what the most viable combos for 2v2 and 3v3 are for Ret pallies in arenas. Again, since I consider myself mediocre at best as a Paladin, I do not expect to grind my way into even 1850s territory -- I simply want a good, effective 2's or 3's combo that will guarantee that I will at least hover around 1500-1600 for 300-ish points a week.

For reference, here is my gear at present:
The World of Warcraft Armory

Feel free to make fun of my spec, it was a rush job, and I didn't expect to stay Ret for long when I did it. :D
 
I actually leveled this character as Holy, so I have the gear for it (about comparable/better resilience, 10k mana, 1400ish +healing as Holy, 9kish health), but I'm too cheap to respec constantly. That, and I'm pretty sure I'm a terrible PvP healer.

That being said, that's probably what I'll have to do. All right then, what's the best bet for a cheap-and-easy Holy pally/x/y combo?
 
Ret is better in 3v3 than Holy.

Druid, War, Ret Paladin or Shaman, War, Ret Paladin are your best choices.

As for 2v2 as ret, Ret/mage, Ret/War, or even Ret/Rogue could do decently. Holy/Lock is probably your best choice for 2s, though.
 
Sailyn said:
Ret is better in 3v3 than Holy.

Druid, War, Ret Paladin or Shaman, War, Ret Paladin are your best choices.
Click to expand...

Those combos are surprisingly effective. I've come up against them more than once and for some reason we always seem to underestimate what a well played ret paladin can do.
 
Shm/War/Pld is good because if the other team gives your shaman 10 seconds of time to go offensive you can burn down pretty much anything. Totems are nice for when you have to play PMR .

2s i'd say go with a rogue (duh) or another ret or prot paladin. You won't be very good but you will still be able to kill people and get points. Double paladin Ret/Prot seems like it would work best.
 
Sailyn said:
Ret is better in 3v3 than Holy.
Click to expand...

I would like to share that upon reading this, my brain instinctively cried out in horror and I desperately wanted to flame. The sad truth is is that this is correct. Holy paladins are in a terrible state in small brackets.


Druid, War, Ret Paladin or Shaman, War, Ret Paladin are your best choices.

As for 2v2 as ret, Ret/mage, Ret/War, or even Ret/Rogue could do decently. Holy/Lock is probably your best choice for 2s, though.
Click to expand...

This stuff is correct as well. Please note that despite windfury totem's amazing synergy with both a warrior and a ret palain, the comp with the druid is the "stronger" one (and a lot less stressful for the healer to play). Don't let this dissuade you from playing it if those are the classes you have available, though.

As for specs, you're going to want to go 0/20/41 to pick up Stoicism and Improved Hammer of Justice in the protection tree. For Ret, make sure to not put points in Fanaticism to slim down the build. Make sure you put at least 1 point into Vindication for the trash debuff/dispel fodder as well.

The strength of the ret paladin lies in his ridiculously random burst damage and his ability to team up with a warrior to totally annihilate the druid healers that are everywhere in the 3v3 bracket. Judgment of Justice on the druid + Blessing of Freedom on the warrior + cleanse spams on himself ensures that two targets will stick to the druid like glue, and Intercept, Repentance, and HoJ all ensure that both players will get back on quickly if they are peeled.

In other matchups, a string of crits from an autoattack, Seal of Casino, Judgment, and Crusader Strike all at once on a soft target can be capitalized upon with a warrior intercept burst (if you're training different targets, that is) and a quick CC/interrupt chain on the enemy healer to drop an opponent in a heartbeat. If you're both training the same target, it'll probably die as soon as your warrior dumps his rage after this. Windfury here is just icing.

The weaknesses of the ret paladin lie in his lack of snares/healing reduction debuffs, his interrupts being on prohibitively long cooldowns, and his incredible vulnerability to mana burns. Despite this, the comp is pretty fun to play (as are most double melee comps).

I'd recommend you also pick up the blue PVP sets you can buy off of the five main faction vendors (the same guys that supply the heroic keys). Note that the 35 resilience set bonus from the blue sets stacks with that of the Gladiator sets, so you can hit 250+ resilience very quickly on fresh 70s nowadays.

Have fun.
 
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Heh, yeah, I'm already using 2pc of the blue set (armory probably hasn't updated with my new pants yet), but I'll need a few more arena points if I want 2pc resil bonus from the actual arena gear. While I'm working on that, I'll start looking for a new 2hander...
 
Ret/Rogue, Ret/Mage, Ret/Lock can all do decently if you're competent. If you get a really good priest you can do Smite Priest/Ret. Warrior/Shaman/Ret and Warrior/Druid/Ret are amazing in 3v3.
 
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